Courtesy of VVA Chapter 172
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WOMEN ON THE WALL
While most of the military casualties of the war were men, there are eight women on the Wall
Memorial, all nurses. They are:
CPT
2LT
2LT
LTC
2LT
CPT
1LT
1LT
Eleanor Grace ALEXANDER (31E 008)
Pamela Dorothy DONOVAN (53W 043)
Carol Ann DRAZBA (05E 046)
Annie Ruth GRAHAM (48W 012)
Elizabeth Ann JONES (05E 047)
Mary Therese KLINKER (01W 122)
Sharon Ann LANE (23W 112)
Hedwig Diane ORLOWSKI (31E 015)
In November1993, the women who served in Vietnam were honored with the dedication of their own
memorial. Vietnam Women's Memorial is an eight foot tall bronze statue depicting two women and a
male casualty. It was designed by Glenna Goodacre and is surrounded by eight yellowood trees representing the eight military women who died in the conflict.
AMERICAN MILITARY AND CIVILIAN FEMALE CASUALTIES
MILITARY
U.S. Army
2nd Lt. Carol Ann Elizabeth Drazba
2nd Lt. Elizabeth Ann Jones
Lt. Drazba and Lt. Jones were assigned to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon. They died in a helicopter
crash near Saigon, February 18, 1966. Drazba was from Dunmore, PA, Jones from Allendale, SC. Both
were 22 years old.
Capt. Eleanor Grace Alexander
1st Lt. Hedwig Diane Orlowski
Capt. Alexander of Westwood, NJ, and Lt. Orlowski of Detroit, MI, died November 30, 1967.
Alexander, stationed at the 85th Evac., and Orlowski, stationed at the 67th Evac. in Qui Nhon, had
been sent to a hospital in Pleiku to help out during a push. With them when their plane crashed on the
return trip to Qui Nhon were two other nurses, Jerome E. Olmstead of Clintonville, WI, and Kenneth
R. Shoemaker, Jr. of Owensboro, KY. Alexander was 27, Orlowski 23. Both were posthumously awarded Bronze Stars.
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2nd Lt. Pamela Dorothy Donovan
Lt. Donovan, from Allston, MA, became seriously ill and died on July 8, 1968. She was assigned to the
85th Evac. in Qui Nhon. She was 26 years old.
1st Lt. Sharon Ann Lane
Lt. Lane died from shrapnel wounds when the 312th Evac. at Chu Lai was hit by rockets on June 8,
1969. From Canton, OH, she was a month short of her 26th birthday. She was posthumously awarded
the Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with Palm and the Bronze Star for Heroism. In 1970, the recovery
room at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, where Lt. Lane had been assigned before going to Viet
Nam, was dedicated in her honor. In 1973, Aultman Hospital in Canton, OH, where Lane had attended
nursing school, erected a bronze statue of Lane. The names of 110 local servicemen killed in Vietnam
are on the base of the statue.
Lt. Col. Annie Ruth Graham, Chief Nurse at 91st Evac. Hospital, Tuy Hoa
Lt. Col. Graham, Chief Nurse, 91st Evacuation Hospital, 43rd Medical Group, 44th Medical Brigade,
Tuy Hoa, from Efland, NC, suffered a stroke and was evacuated to Japan where she died four days
later on August 14, 1968. A veteran of both World War II and Korea, she was 52.
U.S. Air Force
Capt. Mary Therese Klinker
Capt. Klinker, a flight nurse with the 10th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, Travis Air Force Base,
temporarily assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, was on the C-5A Galaxy which crashed on
April 4, 1975, outside Saigon while evacuating Vietnamese orphans. This is known as the Operation
Babylift crash. From Lafayette, IN, she was 27. She was posthumously awarded the Airman's Medal
for Heroism and the Meritorious Service Medal.
U.S. Department of the Navy OICC (Officer in Charge of Construction)
Regina "Reggie" Williams
Died of a heart attack in Saigon, 1964.
CIVILIAN
Catholic Relief Services
Gloria Redlin
Shot to death in Pleiku, 1969.
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Central Intelligence Agency:
Barbara Robbins
Died when a car bomb exploded outside the American Embassy, Saigon, March 30, 1965.
Betty Gebhardt
Died in Saigon, 1971.
United States Agency for International Development:
Marilyn L. Allan
Murdered by a U.S. soldier in Nha Trang, August 16, 1967.
Dr. Breen Ratterman (American Medical Association)
Died from injuries suffered in a fall from her apartment balcony in Saigon, October 2, 1969
Journalists
Georgette "Dickey" Chapelle
Killed by a mine on patrol with Marines outside Chu Lai, 1965.
Philippa Schuyler
Killed in a helicopter crash into the ocean near Da Nang, May 9, 1967.
Missionaries
Carolyn Griswald
Killed in raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 1968.
Janie A. Makil
Shot to death in an ambush, Dalat, March 4, 1963. Janie was five months old.
Ruth Thompson
Killed in raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet, February 1, 1968.
Ruth Wilting
Killed in raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet, February 1, 1968.
Courtesy of VVA Chapter 172
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POW/MIA
Evelyn Anderson
Captured and burned to death in Kengkok, Laos, 1972.
Remains recovered and returned to U.S.
Beatrice Kosin
Captured and burned to death in Kengkok, Laos, 1972.
Remains recovered and returned to U.S.
Betty Ann Olsen
Captured during raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 1968. Died in 1968 and was buried
somewhere along Ho Chi Minh Trail by fellow POW, Michael Benge. Remains not recovered.
Eleanor Ardel Vietti
Captured at leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot, May 30, 1962. Still listed as POW.
Operation Babylift
The following women were killed in the crash, outside Saigon, of the C5-A Galaxy transporting
Vietnamese children out of the country on April 4, 1975. All of the women were working for various
U.S. government agencies in Saigon at the time of their deaths with the exception of Theresa Drye (a
child) and Laurie Stark (a teacher). Sharon Wesley had previously worked for both the American Red
Cross and Army Special Services. She chose to stay on in Vietnam after the pullout of U.S. military
forces in 1973.
Barbara Adams
Clara Bayot
Nova Bell
Arleta Bertwell
Helen Blackburn
Ann Bottorff
Celeste Brown
Vivienne Clark
Juanita Creel
Mary Ann Crouch
Dorothy Curtiss
Twila Donelson
Helen Drye
Theresa Drye
Mary Lyn Eichen
Elizabeth Fugino
Ruthanne Gasper
Beverly Herbert
Penelope Hindman
Courtesy of VVA Chapter 172
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(continued)
Vera Hollibaugh
Dorothy Howard
Barbara Kauvulia
Barbara Maier
Rebecca Martin
Sara Martini
Martha Middlebrook
Katherine Moore
Marta Moschkin
Marion Polgrean
June Poulton
Joan Pray
Sayonna Randall
Anne Reynolds
Marjorie Snow
Laurie Stark
Barbara Stout
Doris Jean Watkins
Sharon Wesley
SOURCES
Vietnam Women's Memorial Project
2001 S Street NW, Suite 302
Washington, D.C. 20009
Phone: 202-328-7253
A Circle of Sisters/A Circle of Friends
1015 South Gaylord, Suite 190
Denver, CO 80209
Phone: 303-575-1311
The data on this Page was compiled by:
Ann Kelsey,
Army Special Services,
Library Branch,
Cam Ranh Bay, 1969-1970
[email protected]
www.VietnamReflections.com
Courtesy of VVA Chapter 172
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www.VietnamReflections.com
REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR WOMEN IN VIETNAM
Richard O. Albert, Bac-Si My: In the Year of the Dog. The author worked as a medical doctor at Phong
Dinh Province Hospital, in Can Tho.
Georg W. Alsheimer (a.k.a. Erich Wulff?), Vietnamesische Lehrjahre: 6 Jahre als dt. Arzt in Vietnam,
1961-1967. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968. 484 pp. Memoir by a German doctor who witnessed the
Buddhist uprising in Hue.
Natalie Patricia Atkin, "Protest and Liberation: War, Peace and Women's Empowerment, 1967-1981."
Ph.D. dissertation, History, Wayne State University, 1999. 265 pp. DA 9954182.
Carl Bancoff, A Forgotten Man. pb New York: S.P.I. Books, 1992. A doctor in Vietnam.
Dan A. Barker, Warrior of the Heart. Burning Cities Press, 1992.
Carl E. Bartecchi, M.D., Soc Trang: A Vietnamese Odyssey. Rocky Mountain Writer's Guild, 1980. An
Army flight surgeon who was at Soc Trang 1965-66.
Philip Bigler, Hostile Fire: The Life and Death of Lt. Sharon Lane. Arlington, VA: Vandamere, 1996.
Lt. Lane was killed by a 122mm rocket on June 8, 1969, at the 312th Evac Hospital in Chu Lai. She
was the only U.S. servicewoman killed by hostile fire during the Vietnam War.
Deborah A. Butler, American Women Writers on Vietnam: Unheard Voices: A Selected Annotated
Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1990.
Wesley G. Byerly, Nam Doc. New York: Vantage, 1981. 140 pp. Byerly went to Vietnam in 1967 as a
volunteer physician.
Ltc. Wesley G. Byerly, Trung Ta Bac Si. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1986. Byerly, a medical officer in
the US Army Reserve, volunteered to serve a tour (April 1969 to March 1970) in Vietnam. The
book consists mostly of entries from his diary.
Barbara Deardorff, Ann Thompson, et. al., Another Kind of War Story: Army Nurses Look Back to
Vietnam. Lebanon, PA: A. Thompson, 1993. xi, 160 pp. ISBN: 0963677403
Margaret Ellen, "Witness to War: The War Stories of Women Vietnam Veterans." Ed.D. dissertation,
(Counseling?), University of Massachusetts, 1998. 253 pp. DA 9823764. War stories of five women
(apparently including the author): three nurses, one Red Cross worker, and one civilian who worked in
refugee camps.
Barbara Evans, Caduceus in Saigon: A Medical Mission to South Vietnam. London: Hutchinson, 1968.
210 pp. A British medical mission that went to Vietnam in 1966.
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Daniel E. Evans, Jr., and Charles Sasser, Doc: Platoon Medic. New York: Pocket Books, 1998. xviii,
248 pp. Evans served in Company B, 4/39 Infantry (David Hackworth's battalion), 9th Infantry
Division, October 1968 to July 1969.
Herbert Ford, No Guns on their Shoulders. Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1968. 144 pp.
Seventh Day Adventist medics in Vietnam.
Noonie Fortin, Memories of Maggie: A Legend Spanning Three Wars. San Antonio: LangMark
Publishing, 1995. Martha Raye, who may have been the most beloved of the entertainters who visited
troops (especially Special Forces, in her case) in Vietnam.
Noonie Fortin, Potpourri of War. San Antonio: LangMark Publishing, 1998. Deals with American
women in Vietnam, both civilian and military, as well as assorted other issues (hence the title).
Dan Freedman and Jacqueline Rhoads, eds., Nurses in Vietnam: The Forgotten Veterans. Austin: Texas
Monthly Press, 1987. xiii, 164 pp.
Fred Gloeckner, A Civilian Doctor in Vietnam. Philadelphia: Winchell, 1972. 123 pp. Author was in
Vietnam (at Ben Tre) only briefly, with Project Vietnam. Anti-war in tone. Warning: partially fictionalized.
Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt, A Time Remembered: American Women in the Vietnam War. Novato: Presidio,
1999. 272 pp. Both nurses and a variety of others.
Mike Hall, The Medic and the Mama-san. Cortland, NY: Hawkeye, 1994. Hall was a medic and operating room technician at the 36th Evac, in Vung Tau, 1968-1969. He married a Vietnamese.
Lynn Hampton, The Fighting Strength: Memoirs of a Combat Nurse in Vietnam. Canton, OH: Daring
Books, 1990; pb New York: Warner, 1992. Lt. Hampton arrived in Vietnam in March 1967.
Robert M. Hardaway, ed., Care of the Wounded in Vietnam. Manhattan, Kansas: Sunflower University
Press, 1988.
Marva Hasselblad with Dorothy Brandon, Lucky-Lucky: A Nurse's Story of Life at a Hospital in
Vietnam. M. Evans & Co., 1966. pb New York: Fawcett, 1967. 191 pp. The author worked at a
Mennonite hospital in Nhatrang, 1962 to 1965.
Dr. Byron E. Holley, Vietnam 1968-1969: A Battalion Surgeon's Journal. New York: Ivy, 1993. Holley
served with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta.
Lieutenant Commander Bobbi Hovis, Station Hospital Saigon: A Navy Nurse in Vietnam, 1963-1964.
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1992.
James Michael Kelsh, Triage: The Gathering Place. New York: Carlton, 1977. 122 pp. Kelsh was an
Army doctor in Vietnam.
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Berneice Lanier, A Rooster at Tet. Huntington, West Virginia: University Editions, 1998. 219 pp.
Lanier was a civilian logistics specialist, working at Long Binh. She was there during the Tet
Offensive.
Kathryn Marshall, In the Combat Zone: An Oral History of American Women in Vietnam, 1966-75.
Boston: Little Brown, 1987. vii, 270 pp.
Bonni McKeown, Peaceful Patriot: The Story of Tom Bennett. Capon Springs, WV: Peaceful Patriot
Press. Tom Bennett was a conscientious objector who became a combat medic, was killed in action
near Pleiku on February 11, 1969, serving with B Company, 1/14 Infantry, 4th Infantry Division; he
was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
Betty Merrell and Priscilla Tunnell, eds., Stories that Won't Go Away: Women in Vietnam, 1959-1975.
Birmingham, AL: New Hope, 1995. 205 pp. An oral history of Southern Baptist missionary women.
Most of the stories are very short--they average a bit under two pages--and there is more human interest than usable information about the war.
Bill Meyer, Combat Medic: The 79th Evac. Perc Press, 1998.
Elizabeth M. Norman, Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses who Served in Vietnam.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
Robert L. Ordóñez, When I Was a Boy: One Year in Vietnam. Lubbock, Texas: CIMA, 1997. 336 pp.
Ordóñez was a platoon medical corpsman with the 3/1 Marines, 1st Marine Division, 1970-1971.
John A. Parrish, M.D., 12, 20 & 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam. New York: Dutton, 1972. pb New
York: Bantam, 1986.
Mary Reynolds Powell, A World of Hurt: Between Innocence and Arrogance in Vietnam. Cleveland:
Greenleaf, 2000. xv, 171 pp. Powell was a nurse at the 24th Evac, Long Binh, 1970-71.
Craig Roberts, Combat Medic - Vietnam. New York: Pocket Books, 1991. Based on interviews and
documentary research. Note that while Roberts served in combat units he did not do so as a medic, and
that some dialog is invented.
Mary Sue Rosenberger, Harmless as Doves: Witnessing for Peace in Vietnam. Eglin, IL: Brethren
Press, 1988. 188 pp. By a volunteer nurse who worked in a hospital in Nha Trang from early 1966 to
late 1967.
Brady W. Slone, Purple Smoke. Pippa Passes, KY: Pippa Valley Printing, 1989. 109 pp. Slone was a
medic with the Wolfhounds (either 1/27 or 2/27 Infantry).
Winnie Smith, American Daughter Gone to War: On the Front Lines with an Army Nurse in Vietnam.
New York: Morrow, 1992. 352 pp. Smith served Sept. 1966 to Sept. 1967 in military hospitals in
Saigon and Long Binh.
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Ron Steinman, Women in Vietnam: The Oral History. TV Books, 2000. 272 pp.
Sandra C. Taylor, Vietnamese Women at War: Fighting for Ho Chi Minh and the Revolution.
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999. x, 170 pp.
Diane L. Trembly, Petticoat Medic in Vietnam: Adventures of a Woman Doctor. New York: Vantage,
1976.
Karen Gottschang Turner with Phan Thanh Hao, Even the Women Must Fight: Memories of War from
North Vietnam. New York: Wiley, 1998.
James W. Turpin, with Al Hirshberg, Vietnam Doctor: The Story of Project Concern. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1966. 210 pp.
Lynda Van Devanter, Home Before Morning (New York: Warner, 1984). Lynda Van Devanter was a
U.S. Army nurse whose tour in Vietnam, June 1969 to June 1970, was served mostly at the 71st
Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku province. A lot of heavy fighting, casualties. The account seems very
good, but the resemblance to "M*A*S*H" is so strong as to inspire faint suspicions.
Lynda Van Devanter and Joan A. Furey, eds., Visions of War, Dreams of Peace: Writings of Women in
the Vietnam War. New York: Warner Books, 1991.
Keith Walker, A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of Twenty Six American Women who Served in
Vietnam. Novato: Presidio, 1985. x, 350 pp.